


Out of control, out of body

by hazelandglasz



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek, Cutting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Not Season/Series 03 Compliant, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 12:34:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2309831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazelandglasz/pseuds/hazelandglasz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>urmeline asked you: Sooo when you said Sterek, dark, fluffy and blood, I had this idea which is not at all what you ended up writing but which I would still like to read. So this is a prompt for you inspired by you :) After the events of season 2 Stiles has major anxiety issues and he discovers that if he hurts himself he feels in charge for a little while. When Scott asks why he smells like blood he excuses it with nose bleedings and stuff like that. Than he runs into Derek one day and, since Derek has more werwolf-y experience that Scott, he can smell the difference between old and fresh blood and he knows what it means that Stiles’ arms smell like both</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of control, out of body

**Author's Note:**

> The tags are sensitive - proceed with caution
> 
> I have been working on this prompt for a while, and I know that this is very different than my usual fics ... I hope i did the prompt justice !

Stiles can deal with the whole kidnapping.

He can deal with Jackson being the Kanima.

He can deal with Gerard vomiting that black, disgusting thing.

He can deal with his best friend being strongly heartbroken.

He can deal with Erica and Boyd going missing. But he can't deal with all of it at the same time.

He gets jumpy and no matter how many pills he takes, it feels like his ADHD is getting worse.  
  
He feels like he's all over the place, like he has no control over himself, which is his worst fear - particularly after watching his mother slowly lose her literal self-control and self-awareness in her battle against the disease that took over her.

Until one evening he crouches on his bed, arms tight around his legs and Stiles starts scratching his knees, to make himself _feel_ something, anything.

The moment his nails pierce the skin, it feels like he just steered his engines in the right direction. Sure, he has to clean up and put a Band-Aid on it, but it's nothing compared to the relief he feels.

  
-

Stiles keeps on scratching, his knees, his thighs, his back even - since he can't see the damage, it feels even more liberating - but after a month or so, it slowly loses its focusing effect, and Stiles wonders.

Would ... cutting feel the same ? Feel better?

Oh, he has absolutely no desire to die, but as things get exponentially weirder and darker around him, he needs to feel like he's not just the meager human of the Pack, like he has control over something, as tiny as it is.

And what better control than testing his resistance to pain, to be the one to draw his own blood, to be able to adjust the size of the cuts, to control the amount of blood he loses?

So Stiles takes his Swiss knife, and pushes the blade against the skin of his elbow.

He finds that he breathes more deeply, if a little bit faster, when the skin stretches to follow the blade, to resist against the wound, until it lets go and pearls of blood rise to the surface. Stiles doesn't cut more than that, and he finds himself mesmerized by the way the blood freezes and coagulates on his skin, like dewdrops on the high grass.

The only downside of his new found technique to keep himself in check is the company he keeps. The thing when you run with wolves is that they have a freakish sense of smell, and sadly, the smell of blood is one they're painfully tuned to.

For a while, Stiles manages to use his usual klutziness as an excuse for the smell of blood that seemingly surrounds him--"I knocked my head on the locker", "I punched myself in the morning, trying to reach for the alarm", those always work-- and even if Scott looks a little bit worried for or about him, it passes.

But not with a certain Alpha werewolf.

No, of course Derek has to look at him with an air of suspicion whenever he arrives at a pack meeting with a fresh wound.

Oh, Stiles has many fantasies involving Derek focusing his attention on him, but not with that look on his face. Not a look that is halfway between suspicion and worry.

\---

He should have seen it coming, really. The longer he kept his habit up, the more it was bound to happen.

"It" being Derek cornering him alone in his own bedroom for a little chat.

"Hey, Derek," Stiles manages to say without his voice shaking too much. "Couldn't stay away from my lair, could you?"

"We need to talk."

"Oh no, are you breaking up with me?" Stiles asks, covering his heart with his hands.

Derek huffs, and he almost looks amused by Stiles's antics before schooling his features. "It's not like I can really make you go away, anyway," he replies, and Stiles looks down, trying to swallow down the bitter taste of rejection. "No, we need to talk about that scent."

Stiles looks up, almost snapping his neck in his haste. "I told you guys, I'm just a massive klutz--Gerard must have made even worse, what can I say," he tells Derek, hoping that his heart is not betraying him. Bu the way Derek crosses the room to crouch in front of him doesn't make that option look good.

"You know, the thing with born werewolves," Derek says softly, reaching for Stiles's wrists and pushing his shirt's sleeves, "our sense of smell is sharper than bitten ones."

Stiles remains silent, eyes glued to the way Derek's hands are wrapped around his forearms, until they reach his elbows and he almost chokes on air.

"And did you know that old blood doesn't smell like fresh one?" Derek continues, looking up at Stiles through his eyelashes.

"You don't say," Stiles whispers, trying to pull his arms away but Derek is too strong for him--it's not like he's hurting Stiles, but he keeps him where he is.

Derek hums, pushing the sleeves over the crook of Stiles's elbows and revealing the multiple scars crisscrossing on his skin. "Are you trying to punish yourself, Stiles?" he asks, voice so soft Stiles wants to cry. He can only shake his head, and Derek keeps his hands around Stiles's arms, his thumbs drawing circles on the crook of his elbows. Stiles takes a deep breath and, keeping his eyes on Derek's thumbs, tells him the whole story.

How he didn't recover from Gerard's attack as well as he said. How he feels useless and like a liability to the pack. How he feels like he has absolutely no control over his life. How his body is the only thing he can control. How he came up with that idea that by hurting himself, he's making himself stronger.

Derek doesn't say anything, but at some point in Stiles's story, he stands up and pulls him up too to go and sit on Stiles's bed, one leg folded under himself and one hand latched onto Stiles's wrist.

"But don't--you don't need to worry about me," Stiles concludes, still not able to look at Derek. Except when the Alpha reaches for his chin to force him to look up.

"Stiles, do you really think that we don't worry about you?" he asks, voice deadly serious. "That we need you to tell us when to or not to worry? That Scott isn't already thinking about ways to make you more balanced because he doesn't know better than believing you?"

Stiles frowns at him. "Well, it's not like I'm at the top of your priorities," he mumbles and Derek huffs.

"You're part of my pack, whether I like it or not," he replies gruffly, and it feels like a punch in the gut.

"If you really don't like it, Hale, I can just leave," Stiles hisses at Derek, pulling himself free from Derek's hand. "I didn't ask to be pulled into your world, you know."

"I didn't say I didn't want you there," Derek retorts and Stiles lets out a pained laugh.

"Whether you like it or not? Yeah, a pretty good indication that you don't particularly enjoy my presence in your little club."

"What I meant," Derek replies patiently, even if there is a shadow of red in his eyes, "is that I don't mind you being in the pack. What I mind is the danger it puts you in."

"Comes with the territory," Stiles comments and Derek lets out a huffed laugh.

"Making a joke?"

"Not intended, but it's pretty brilliant."

"You are pretty brilliant," Derek says and Stiles feels himself turning red. Like he can physically feeling himself changing colors. "And I know that you saved our asses more than the other way around. And of course I worry about you, and not because you're human, but because you're you."

"You do?" Stiles asks, voice small and not truly believing.

"Yeah I do," Derek replies, before brushing the tip of his nose against Stiles's scars. Stiles wouldn't be able to explain why, but the touch feels so very ... intimate, and gentle. More the touch of a lover than one of a friend or a Pack leader.

"As infuriating as you can be," Derek murmurs, lips brushing the sensitive skin of Stiles's forearm, "you're always in a corner of my head, like a song I've forgotten but keep on remembering." A moment of silence stretches between them, with Derek's forehead pressing down on Stiles's bicep.

"I'll stop," Stiles says softly, his free hand tentatively reaching for the soft hair on the nape of Derek's neck.

"Good," Derek replies before looking up and slowly, but surely, rubbing his nose against Stiles's. "And I'll make sure to make you feel in control."


End file.
